My wife of 45 years finish nightshift as a nurse and went to catch the bus home at 7 am. Before catching the bus she decided to pop into the ER department at Saint Charles Gardner Hospital to see if they could give her something for a bad headache. She had been having headaches and neck problems for some time and the GP doctors had the opinion it was all related to a lifetime of nursing.
That faithful morning a Charlie gardeners a doctor decided to do a scan and a brain tumour was detected. My wife had emergency surgery within just a few days. Then came even worse news she had stage 4 Gliblastoma. I also had surgery scheduled for myself for removal of a suspicious item on my eyelid. I had the surgery and was given fentanyl as an anaesthetic, afterwards I was sent home and I woke up the next morning in a very bad state. It was something to do with the combination of what was going on and the fentanyl. I was absolutely in a state of panic and suicidal.
I was going every day to see my wife at Osborne Park Hosptal, Rehab ward. I felt like I should go regardless of how I feel on this day. The problem was I was a bit odd when a nurse came into the room. I turned on my chair and looked out the window window at Osborne Park hospital. The rehabilitation ward overlooked the grounds outside. The wind was blowing grass around. As it turns out I didn’t realise that the the nurse who came into the room was a young person of a different nationality who it seems took great offence at me looking out the window and automatically assumed that it was all about them. Well, it wasn’t.
They went and got a senior nurse and older person who came in with them and questioned me about looking out the window. I was in a bit of a confused state. I said what do you mean? I don’t know what you mean? They said well there must be something very interesting out that window out there. I recall they said it sarcastically. I just ignored them and went silent. I felt like I should just ignore them. They were assuming an awful lot and they were very unpleasant. They didn’t ask me if I was alright.
Those few words or the lack of them are what troubles me all this time, over a year, later. There was no atmosphere to apologise for what I saw as their mistake. I refused to apologise for somebody else’s apparent prejudice. The feelings of the young nurse seemed to be the most important thing in the room that day. My wife's imminent passing didn’t seem to factor into anything. My behaviour might have been odd looking out the window but it hardly warrants jumping to conclusions when a simple question and some empathy and compassion might have resolved the issue. Are you okay today? Sometimes empathy and understanding is not where you expect it.
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